ure was pot-black. She broke down and wept.

"Oh, oh," she sobbed, "if only I'd watched him closer that day. But I
was washing, and I sort of forgot about him for a spell, and when I'd
got the clothes on the line he wasn't anywhere in sight, and--and it's
all my fuf-fault."

This was too much for Racey Dawson. He got up and went out. Savagely
he pulled his hat over his eyes and strode to where his horse stood in
the shade of a cottonwood. But he did not pick up the trailing reins.
For as he reached the animal he saw approaching across the flat the
figures of a horse and rider. And the man was Luke Tweezy.

With the sight of Mrs. Dale's tears fresh in his memory and the rage
engendered thereby galvanizing his brain he went to meet Mr. Tweezy.

"Howdy, Racey," said the lawyer, pulling up.

"Whadda you want?" demanded Racey, halting a scant yard from Luke
Tweezy's left leg.

"I come to see Mrs. Dale," replied Tweezy, his leathery features
wrinkling in a grimace intended to pass for a propitiating smile.

Racey's stare was venomous. "Tweezy," he drawled, "I done told you
something about admiring to see you put these women off this ranch,
didn't I?"

"Oh, you was just a li'l hasty. I understand. That's all right. I've
done forgot all about it."

"So I see. So I see. I'm reminding you of it. After this, Luke, I'd
hobble my memory if I was you, then it won't go straying off thisaway
and get you into trouble."

"Trouble?"

Racey did not deign to repeat. He nodded simply.

"I ain't got no gun," explained the lawyer.

"Alla more easy for me, then. You can't shoot back."

Luke Tweezy choked. Choked and spat. "---- ----" he began in a violent
tone of voice.

"Careful, careful," cautioned Racey, promptly kicking the lawyer's
horse in the ribs. "There's ladies in the house. You get a-holt of
yore tongue."

Luke Tweezy obeyed the command literally. For, his horse going into
the air with great briskness at the impact of Racey's toe, even as the
puncher had intended it should, he, Luke Tweezy, bit his tongue so
hard that he wept involuntary tears of keenest anguish.

"You stop that cussin'," resumed Racey, seizing the bridle short and
yanking the bouncing horse to a standstill with a swerve and a jerk
that almost unseated its rider. "You be careful how you talk, you--hop
toad!"

"Leggo that bridle!" yammered Tweezy, almost distraught with anger.
His tongue pained him exquisitely and he was otherwise physically
s